Thursday, 4 March 2010

Pantheism: It's like Atheism by James Cameron.

New age and quasi religions are generally harmless enough. Let's get that out of the way right now. There's nothing you're about to read that is going to threaten your existence or start gently tapping on your internal alarm bells. People have the urge to worship, I get it - whether that's god, or the beauty of nature, or a living embodiment of a reincarnated Lama, or herds of cattle or whatever. Most people want something to bow down to, this is a programmed part of our biology (one that I seem to have missed out on altogether, to my relief). In pursuit of fulfilling that urge, they'll find something that fits their worldview and run with it. Buddhism suits a lot of agnostic folk. Deism was a big one through the ages - the idea that there is some order to the universe that is to be respected and worshipped, if not in the form of a god.

If I was forced to pick a problem with it - something that would require less than a herculean effort - it would be that any kind of mysticism invariably ends up sounding like it was issued from the mouth of a hippie in his prime (read: shitfaced). I'd like to introduce you to a form of non-religious religion that's been steadily growing in popularity since Richard Dawkins mentioned it in passing in The God Delusion. Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you Pantheism.

Or, as I've just this second taken to calling it, Avatarism.

Basically, these are the folk who have rejected the idea of a personal god - but only so that they can make room for a no-holds-barred worship of nature and the cosmos. So yeah, they've removed the supernatural elements. And replaced them with, lets call them, ultranatural elements.

I'm going to cut and paste the belief statement from the World Pantheist Movement website to give you all an idea of what it's like. You never know, you might really like what you read. I'm going to run a translation service on some of the more wordy ones, because I'm that nice.

The belief statement of the WPM*

1. We revere and celebrate the Universe as the totality of being, past, present and future. It is self-organizing, ever-evolving and inexhaustibly diverse. Its overwhelming power, beauty and fundamental mystery compel the deepest human reverence and wonder. The universe is pretty damn huge and complicated and you should be impressed.

2. All matter, energy, and life are an interconnected unity of which we are an inseparable part. We rejoice in our existence and seek to participate ever more deeply in this unity through knowledge, celebration, meditation, empathy, love, ethical action and art. Everything is connected, man. And we can connect with it if we just meditate and celebrate and love each other!

3. We are an integral part of Nature, which we should cherish, revere and preserve in all its magnificent beauty and diversity. We should strive to live in harmony with Nature locally and globally. We acknowledge the inherent value of all life, human and non-human, and strive to treat all living beings with compassion and respect. Please do not antagonise the animals. They will not thank you for it. Nor will the trees.

4. All humans are equal centers of awareness of the Universe and nature, and all deserve a life of equal dignity and mutual respect. To this end we support and work towards freedom, democracy, justice, and non-discrimination, and a world community based on peace, sustainable ways of life, full respect for human rights and an end to poverty. Everyone is potentially a pantheist, so we won't kill or discriminate against anyone.

5. There is a single kind of substance, energy/matter, which is vibrant and infinitely creative in all its forms. Body and mind are indivisibly united.

Uh...you can't live without a brain.

6. We see death as the return to nature of our elements, and the end of our existence as individuals. The forms of "afterlife" available to humans are natural ones, in the natural world. Our actions, our ideas and memories of us live on, according to what we do in our lives. Our genes live on in our families, and our elements are endlessly recycled in nature. Decomposition is like composting, which we believe in quite strongly.

7. We honor reality, and keep our minds open to the evidence of the senses and of science's unending quest for deeper understanding. These are our best means of coming to know the Universe, and on them we base our aesthetic and religious feelings about reality. Science can forever provide us with more concepts to which we may attach the words 'unity', 'reverence' and 'harmony'.

8. Every individual has direct access through perception, emotion and meditation to ultimate reality, which is the Universe and Nature. There is no need for mediation by priests, gurus or revealed scriptures.

Work it out yourself using common sense and your own experiences. Though we must insist that you also meditate.

9. We uphold the separation of religion and state, and the universal human right of freedom of religion. We recognize the freedom of all pantheists to express and celebrate their beliefs, as individuals or in groups, in any non-harmful ritual, symbol or vocabulary that is meaningful to them.

If you're going to be a Pantheist, for revered nature's sake, please don't force anyone else to be one.

Look, like I said, it'll harm nobody. Which is more than can be said about the theologies I tend to rage about.

I just find it funny that people are willing to let go of god to the extent that they can immediately begin filling in all the time they would otherwise have spent praying 'meditating', 'emoting' and trying to discover that weird 'single kind of substance, energy/matter, that is a fundamental creative force" or whatever. The need to worship baffles and intrigues me. There is something within us that demands that we place ourselves at the bottom of the ladder. If not at the feet of a god, we are subservient to nature.

I mistrust this impulse. It's rife for abuse. We can safeguard it by setting up the boundaries that Pantheism has obviously taken pains to define. I just don't understand the need for it in the first place.

If any visitor to this blog has an opinion on this, please comment. Obviously I haven't given a fair and balanced account of Pantheism here - I'm not after a lesson in their deepest philosophies. They are simple enough. What I really want to know is this: You've accepted that there's no supernatural. Why then existentialise the natural?

Well, and I am an enemy of pantheism, because of the bloated way it speaks about the simple facts of nature. Even its greatest poets, Whitman and Rilke,lack all humor and can't write except by posing as high priests.

Found your site through MM. Great sense of humor! I am not a pantheist, although I respect the beliefs of anyone who is kind and whose gods don't justify murder or war.

I am one of those god worshipers, though. I worship because I am aware of the existence of beings greater than I am. I am moved to worship, not because I am "programmed" to worship, but because I experience that which is worthy of my praise.

And I see many beings worthy of my praise. I'm a polytheist.

This in no way minimizes my value as a human being, but my name says it all: we are very small in the universe, and a little humility might serve us well.

5. There is a single kind of substance, energy/matter, which is vibrant and infinitely creative in all its forms. Body and mind are indivisibly united.

Translation: "We reject supernatural claims." It is wordy only because it is precise. It also makes the point that we don't need something to be supernatural to think it's pretty neat. This weird "single kind of substance, energy/matter" is simply E=MC^2. Matter and energy are the same damned thing. How did you not get that?

6. We see death as the return to nature of our elements, and the end of our existence as individuals. The forms of "afterlife" available to humans are natural ones, in the natural world. Our actions, our ideas and memories of us live on, according to what we do in our lives. Our genes live on in our families, and our elements are endlessly recycled in nature.

This is identical to the typical atheist view of death, or so I thought. A translation: we are not afraid of death even though we don't believe in an afterlife.

7. We honor reality, and keep our minds open to the evidence of the senses and of science's unending quest for deeper understanding. These are our best means of coming to know the Universe, and on them we base our aesthetic and religious feelings about reality.

Translation: made up shit sucks. Science is not made up shit. Also, some things are pretty neat.

8. Every individual has direct access through perception, emotion and meditation to ultimate reality, which is the Universe and Nature. There is no need for mediation by priests, gurus or revealed scriptures.

Translation: a standard egalitarian perspective. There is no insisting upon mediation. There is no insisting upon anything anywhere, you will notice. By the way meditation is quite common, even among atheists, and science has actually shown it to be functional. Why the attempt at criticism? This is why I think this post is just grasping for something to complain about when you couldn't think of anything worthwhile.

9. We uphold the separation of religion and state, and the universal human right of freedom of religion. We recognize the freedom of all pantheists to express and celebrate their beliefs, as individuals or in groups, in any non-harmful ritual, symbol or vocabulary that is meaningful to them.

Translation: separation of church and state is good. Also, please don't be a dickhead.

Pantheism is atheism with a sense of perspective and a subsequent sense of awe. If you want to understand what the WPM is all about, you really just need to look up Carl Sagan. As you had mostly correctly interpreted the first statement of the WPM credo, "The universe is pretty damn huge and complicated and you should be impressed." The problem here is your including the word "should". If you are not impressed by the hugeness or complexity of the universe, then you simply don't qualify as a pantheist. We really wouldn't care if we were the only ones. But we suspect that we are not. Let's look at it again.

1. We revere and celebrate the Universe as the totality of being, past, present and future. It is self-organizing, ever-evolving and inexhaustibly diverse. Its overwhelming power, beauty and fundamental mystery compel the deepest human reverence and wonder.

Nowhere do you see a "should" statement. It is nothing more than a statement of fact about what we happen to celebrate, and about what happens to compel a sense of wonder. Fact.

Next point.

2. All matter, energy, and life are an interconnected unity of which we are an inseparable part. We rejoice in our existence and seek to participate ever more deeply in this unity through knowledge, celebration, meditation, empathy, love, ethical action and art.

Translation: "We are a part of the universe and we're pleased to be alive." The first part is a simple fact. The second part seems pretty reasonable.

3. We are an integral part of Nature, which we should cherish, revere and preserve in all its magnificent beauty and diversity. We should strive to live in harmony with Nature locally and globally. We acknowledge the inherent value of all life, human and non-human, and strive to treat all living beings with compassion and respect.

That you would criticize this one still confounds me. Translation: "We are a part of Nature, not separate from it. We evolved here just like everything else. It's another simple fact. We revere it and find it beautiful." Is that not reasonable? Should we have hostile feelings? Are feelings of indifference in any way more reasonable or productive? I doubt you yourself have feelings of complete indifference. Have you never watched a thunderstorm or nature documentaries? Haven't you ever been impressed with anything, ever? Some things are pretty neat. We like those things.

4. All humans are equal centers of awareness of the Universe and nature, and all deserve a life of equal dignity and mutual respect. To this end we support and work towards freedom, democracy, justice, and non-discrimination, and a world community based on peace, sustainable ways of life, full respect for human rights and an end to poverty.

I have no idea why you said what you did in response to this one. It made no sense. I think this is pretty self-explanatory, but I'll humor you because you insist on misunderstanding. Translation: No person is inherently more valuable than any other. We value human rights.

Please, let me explain again. There is no worship. Only reverence. Respect. Awe. Wonder. Have you ever heard someone call themselves a Saganist? That's the same basic thing as a pantheist. Naturally, one can get much deeper into pantheist philosophy, which is a matter of further considering the implications of the facts of one's place in the universe, but it isn't really necessary. Most atheists, unless they are completely (inhumanly) callous and uncaring, are unsophisticated scientific pantheists whether they like it or not. Check this out: http://www.pantheism.net/paul/science.htm#4

I want to stress a point one more time, because it kind of irritates me. PANTHEISM INVOLVES NO WORSHIP. We are not subservient to nature. We are a part of nature. It's not something you can really argue against. We evolved here, just like everything else. Also, a reverence for nature implicitly includes a reverence for all human activity. In other words, in language you might understand, "Computers are pretty neat." To make it a pantheist thought, simply dwell on how neat computers actually are.

I may have been misleading in only one sense. Saying "It's pretty neat" doesn't quite cut it. That would just make the whole ordeal pointless. We stand in awe. We have profound positive feelings when we think about how awesome it is to be alive. We think it's pretty special.

You asked: "What I really want to know is this: You've accepted that there's no supernatural. Why then existentialise the natural?"

I'll let Richard Dawkins explain this one: "We are going to die, and that makes us the lucky ones. Most people are never going to die because they are never going to be born. The potential people who could have been here in my place but who will in fact never see the light of day outnumber the sand grains of Arabia. Certainly those unborn ghosts include greater poets than Keats, scientists greater than Newton. We know this because the set of possible people allowed by our DNA so massively exceeds the set of actual people. In the teeth of these stupefying odds it is you and I, in our ordinariness, that are here." Isn't that pretty neat? Or will you intentionally misunderstand that, too? Do you think that's also rife for abuse?

I'll let Mr. Dawkins continue. "Think about it. On one planet, and possibly only one planet in the entire universe, molecules that would normally make nothing more complicated than a chunk of rock, gather themselves together into chunks of rock-sized matter of such staggering complexity that they are capable of running, jumping, swimming, flying, seeing, hearing, capturing and eating other such animated chunks of complexity; capable in some cases of thinking and feeling, and falling in love with yet other chunks of complex matter."

Do you still find this rife for abuse? It is a very pantheist thought. Is it too bloated a way to speak about the simple facts of nature?

I realize that I've really only been arguing in favor of feeling. In general, it's good to feel and it's good to be alive. It's actually not an argument I'm qualified to make. You'd need to see a psychologist for that one if you still don't get it.